


273,990 Minutes…

by FrancescasWords



Category: The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:53:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23908768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrancescasWords/pseuds/FrancescasWords
Summary: It had been one-hundred-and-ninety-one days... then the phone rang.
Kudos: 5





	273,990 Minutes…

**Author's Note:**

> In which I've discovered a fic I wrote in 2012. I can't remember which HOO books were out then; this is set during Son of Neptune.

It was the one-hundredth-and-ninety-first day.

The call came at six-thirty in the morning.

Annabeth hadn't even opened her eyes before snatching the phone from the bedside table. Camp hadn't started up yet and the rest of her cabin was still asleep, but Annabeth kept her phone on permanently. She knew the campers weren't supposed to use them, and she kept the ringer volume down so as to not disturb anyone, but she and Sally had agreed last winter that if _anything_ Percy-related happened, they would phone one another immediately.

"What's happin'?" Annabeth mumbled as she blinked awake. "Has he come home?" Sally paused down the other end before answering.

"Not quite. But he phoned me!"

Annabeth sat up so quickly she hit her head on the bunk above. "What did he say? Is he hurt? Where is he?" He had definitely moved since she'd dreamt about him the other night, and Tyson was heading north. But how far north? Surely Percy wasn't stupid enough to risk Alaska. Maybe the Romans had some business with Boreas.

"He didn't tell me where he is, but he sounded fine. He… he said he was on a quest. But that he'd make it home."

Of course. Of course he was on a quest. He was a quest magnet. He'd probably been on hundreds since December.

"Did you ask what the quest is about?" Annabeth was fully awake now, processing what she'd heard at a hundred miles an hour. All these months of guesswork and waiting and now _actual proof_ that Seaweed Brain was still alive. Alive and kicking, no less.

"I couldn't. He left a message in the middle of the night. We'd have picked up if we'd been in, but we were out with friends. Whatever I ate made me sick, so I was up early and checked the messages."

"Could you trace the call?"

"I wasn't sure whether I should… you know, because of the signals." Good point. Percy must have gotten his sense from somewhere. Annabeth heard tidal waves crash in her head and smiled slightly. Poseidon was keeping tabs on Percy's progress too, then.

"That's fine, don't worry about it." Annabeth rubbed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Thanks for calling, Sally, I'll let Chiron know as soon as he's up. Oh, thank the gods…"

"That's what I said." Sally smiled down the phone and Annabeth could feel her excitement from Manhattan. "I'll let you get back to sleep now and wake Paul up with the news. Annabeth, he's alive!"

Ten minutes after hanging up, Annabeth was fully dressed and polishing her bronze knife while she waited for the harpies to go off curfew-watch duty. Percy was within reach. She'd been unsure, even with the _Argo II_ so near completion, about finding the Roman camp. What if Percy hadn't made it there? What if he had no idea about his previous life? She'd seen how confused Jason had been to start with. His memory had returned since the solstice, but judging by everyone's inability to get through to Percy for months, maybe he wasn't quite as recovered. Maybe the memory loss was permanent. Maybe he'd been so changed by his new experiences that he didn't need his old life. Jason had Piper now, after all.

But he'd called his mom.

Annabeth wanted to laugh, cry and stab Hera through the face with her knife. They would be leaving for Camp Jupiter soon, according to Leo. Seaweed Brain had better be back from his quest by then…

274,003 minutes.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Any comments are appreciated.


End file.
